Macclesfield star Ben Ainslie will face no further punishment for an incident in December's World Championships which saw him board a media boat to confront the crew.

Ainslie finished race nine in Perth, Australia second to Holland's Pieter-Jan Postma, but felt impeded by the media boat's wake on the downwind leg.

After the Finn race ended, the 34-year-old, who has an unprecedented five world titles, swum over to the offending boat and hauled himself on board to remonstrate with the crew, leading to his subsequent disqualification from races nine and 10 as a result, which meant he could no longer win a medal.

After investigating the incident, the Royal Yachting Association decided no further punishment was necessary, calming any worries Ainslie's bid for a fourth Olympic gold medal in Weymouth this summer might be affected.

A statement read: "The tribunal agreed with the decision of the International Jury that the behaviour of Mr Ben Ainslie amounted to a gross breach of good manners and conduct that brought the sport into disrepute.

"Having considered all the evidence put before it, the tribunal was satisfied that it would not be appropriate for the tribunal to impose a penalty over and above that imposed by the International Jury at the event.

"In reaching its decision the tribunal acknowledged that the effect of the penalty imposed by the International Jury was to deny Mr Ainslie the possibility of taking part in the medal race for the event."

"I deeply regret the incident, but would like to thank all the governing bodies involved for their thorough investigation."

In their statement, the RYA also suggested there should be more stringent control of media boats.

It continued: "The tribunal also recognised that there was an apparent lack of active management of media boats at this and previous events leading to repeated infringements of the provisions of the event media boat guidelines. In addition, formal rights of redress against official boats were not available to competitors."